Fans of Dani Shapiro can't wait for her first novel to come out in 15 years. Her last book Inheritance (2019) revealed her own family’s secrets in a bombshell memoir. Now with Signal Fires (out October 18), she returns to her roots with a story about family secrets and the lengths people will go to for the ones they love. We caught up with Dani to see what she’s reading these days. Here’s what she had to say:
Alice Elliott Dark’s novel, Fellowship Point, is a gorgeous, complex, powerful story of female friendship over the course of many decades. I was taken in by the unforgettable characters, the geography of the Maine coast, and the twists and turns of the plot. This is a sweeping novel of family and friendship and place, acutely observed and lovingly rendered.
Body Work, by Melissa Febos, is one of the finest books about writing I’ve read in years. Part memoir, part a master class in craft, and always bracingly original. Febos models the courage that she also engenders.
The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family. This is one of the greatest subtitles ever. Joshua Cohen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel announces itself as a novel, even as it begins to play with genre and form in the very title and subtitle itself. This never lets up. A brilliant, surprising, genre-bending story, and one that is beautifully written.
Life Work by Donald Hall. I re-read this slim, bracing memoir every few years. Donald Hall was one of our great poets and essayists, and in this book he offers plain-spoken wisdom about what it is to dedicate oneself, again and again, to the discipline of making art. An essential work for writers.